We met Kubrick last November [1971] at his home near Borehamwood, a
casual labyrinth of studios, offices, and seemingly dual-purpose rooms in
which family life and filmmaking overlap as though the one were
unthinkable without the other. Despite his reputed aversion to the ordeals
of interrogation, Kubrick proved an immensely articulate
conversationalist, willing to talk out in detail any aspect, technical or
theoretical, of his devotion to the cinema. When we came to transcribe our
tapes, what indeed emerged was perhaps rather more of a conversation
covering a lot of ground, than a formal interview.

When A Clockwork Orangeopened in London a few weeks later, Kubrick
found himself in the front line of somebody else's war. The critics were
up in arms about Straw Dogs, in particular, and A Clockwork
Orange
became caught in the crossfire, especially after the Home Secretary's much
publicised visit to the film. It was an extrodinary fuss (the novel was,
after all, first published ten years ago), the more so for seeming to be
about a Clockwork Orange that sounded like nothing much to do with the
film Kubrick made. But it also meant that some of his replies to our
original questions would have to be revised, to make due allowance for the
arguments the film had caused. So what follows is to some extent a Kubrick
rewrite of a Kubrick interview -- in the interests, as always with
Kubrick, of precision.

S&H: How closely did you work with Anthony Burgess in adapting A
Clockwork Orange for the screen?

Stanley Kubrick: I had virtually no opportunity of discussing
the novel with Anthony Burgess. He phoned me one evening when was passing
through London and we had a brief conversation on the telephone. It was
mostly an exchange of pleasantries. On the other hand, I wasn't
particularly concerned about this because in a book as brilliantly written
as A Clockwork Orange one would have to be lazy not to be able to find
the answers to any questions which might arise within the text of the
novel itself. I think it is reasonable to say that, whatever Burgess had
to say about the story was said in the book.

How about your own contributions to the story? You seemed to have
preserved the style and structure of the original far more closely than
with most of your previous films, and the dialogues are often exactly the
same as in the novel.

My contribution to the story consisted of writing the screenplay. This
was principally a matter of selection and editing, though I did invent a
few useful narrative ideas and reshape some of the scenes. However, in
general, these contributions merely clarified what was already in the
novel -- such as the Cat Lady telephoning the police, which explains why
the police appear at the end of that scene. In the novel, it occurs to
Alex that she may have called them, but this is the sort of thing you can
do in a novel and not in the screenplay. I was also rather pleased with
the idea of 'Singin' in the Rain' as a means of Alexander identifying Alex
again towards the end of the film.

How did you come to use 'Singin' in the Rain' in the first place?

This was one of the more important ideas which arose during
rehearsal. This scene, in fact, was rehearsed longer than any other scene
in the film and appeared to be going nowhere. We spent three days trying
to work out just what was going to happen and somehow it all seemed a bit
inadequate. Then suddenly the idea popped into my head -- I don't know
where it came from or what triggered it off.

The main addition you seem to have made to the original story is the
scene of Alex's introduction to the prison. Why did you feel this was
important?

It may be the longest scene but I would not think it is the most
important. It was a necessary addition because the prison sequence is
compressed, in comparison with the novel, and one had to have something in
it which gave sufficient weight to the idea that Alex was actually
imprisoned. The routine of checking into prison which, in fact, is quite
accurately represented in the film, seemed to provide this necessary
weight.

In the book there is another killing by Alex while he is in prison.
By omitting this, don't you run the risk of seeming to share Alex's own
opinion of himself as a high-spirited innocent?

I shouldn't think so, and Alex doesn't see himself as a
high-spirited innocent. He is totally aware of his own evil and accepts it
with complete openness.

Alex seems a far more pleasant person in the film than in the
book...

Alex makes no attempt to deceive himself or the audience as to his
total corruption and wickedness. He is the very personification of evil.
On the other hand, he has winning qualities: his total candor, his wit,
his intelligence and his energy; these are attractive qualities and ones,
I might add, which he shares with Richard III.

The violence done to Alex in the brain-washing sequence is in fact
more horrifying than anything he does himself....

It was absolutely necessary to give weight to Alex's brutality,
otherwise I think there would be moral confusion with respect to what the
government does to him. If he were a lesser villain, then one could say:
'Oh, yes, of course, he should not be given this psychological
conditioning; it's all too horrible and he really wasn't that bad after
all.' On the other hand, when you have shown him committing such atrocious
acts, and you still realise the immense evil on the part of the government
in turning him into something less than human in order to make him good,
then I think the essential moral idea of the book is clear. It is
necessary for man to have choice to be good or evil, even if he chooses
evil. To deprive him of this choice is to make him something less than
human -- a clockwork orange.

But aren't you inviting a sort of identification with Alex?

I think, in addition to the personal qualities I mentioned, there
is the basic psychological, unconscious identification with Alex. If you
look at the story not on the social and moral level, but on the
psychological dream content level, you can regard Alex as a creature of
the id. He is within all of us. In most cases, this recognition seems to
bring a kind of empathy from the audience, but it makes some people very
angry and uncomfortable. They are unable to accept this view of themselves
and, therefore, they become angry at the film. It's a bit like the King
who kills the messenger who brings him bad news and rewards the one who
brings him good news.

The comparison with Richard III makes a striking defence against
accusations that the film encourages violence, delinquency, and so on. But
as Richard is a safely distant historical figure, does it meet them
completely?

There is no positive evidence that violence in films or television
causes social violence. To focus one's interest on this aspect of violence
is to ignore the principal causes, which I would list as:

To try to fasten any responsibility on art as the cause of life seems
to me to put the case the wrong way around. Art consists of reshaping life
but it does not create life, nor cause life. Furthermore to attribute
powerful suggestive qualities to a film is at odds with the scientifically
accepted view that, even after deep hypnosis, in a posthypnotic state,
people cannot be made to do things which are at odds with their natures.

Is there any kind of violence in films which you might regard as
socially dangerous?

Well, I don't accept that there is a connection, but let us
hypothetically say that there might be one. If there were one, I should
say that the kind of violence that might cause some impulse to emulate it
is the 'fun' kind of violence: the kind of violence we see in the Bond
films, or in Tom and Jerry cartoons. Unrealistic violence, sanitized
violence, violence presented as a joke. This is the only kind of violence
that could conceivably cause anyone to wish to copy it, but I am quite
convinced that not even this has any effect.

There may even be an argument in support of saying that any kind of
violence in films, in fact, serves a useful social purpose by allowing
people a means of vicariously freeing themselves from the pent up,
aggressive, aggressive emotions which are better expressed in dreams, or
in the dreamlike state of watching a film, than in any form of reality or
sublimation.

Isn't the assumption of your audience in the case of Clockwork
Orange likely to be that you support Alex's point of view and in some way
assume responsibility for it?

I don't think that any work of art has a responsibility to be
anything but a work of art. There obviously is a considerable controversy,
just as there always has been, about what is a work of art, and I should
be the last to try to define that. I was amused by Cocteau's Orpheé
when the poet is given the advice: 'Astonish me'. The Johnsonian
definition of a work of art is also meaningful to me, and that is that a
work of art must either make life more enjoyable or more endurable.
Another quality, which I think forms part of the definition, is that a
work of art is always exhilarating and never depressing, whatever its
subject matter may be.

In view of the particular exhilaration of Alex's religious
fantasies, has the film run into trouble with clerical critics?

The reaction of the religious press has been mixed, although a
number of superb reviews have been written. One of the most perceptive
reviews by the religious press, or any other press, appeared in The
Catholic News written by John E. Fitzgerald, and I would like to quote
one portion of it:

"In print we've been told (in B. F. Skinner's Beyond Freedom and
Dignity) that man is but a grab-bag of conditioned reflexes. On screen
with images rather than words, Stanley Kubrick shows that man is more than
a mere product of heredity and/or environment. For as Alex's clergyman
friend (a character who starts out as a fire-and-brimstone-spouting
buffoon but ends up the spokesman for the film's thesis) says: "When a man
cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.

"The film seems to say that to take away a man's choice is not to redeem
him but merely to restrain him: otherwise we have a society of oranges,
organic but operating like clock-work. Such brainwashing, organic and
psychological, is a weapon that totalitarians in state, church, or society
might wish for an easier good even at the cost of individual rights and
dignity. Redemption is a complicated thing and change must be motivated
from within rather than imposed from without if moral values are to be
upheld. But Kubrick is an artist rather than a moralist and he leaves it
to us to figure what's wrong and why, what should be done and how it
should be accomplished."

Your choice of lenses for the shooting of the film often give it a
subtly distorted visual quality. Why did you want that particular look?

It may sound like an extremely obvious thing to say, but I think it
is worth saying nevertheless that when you are making a film, in addition
to any higher purpose you may have in mind, you must be interesting;
visually interesting, narratively interesting, interesting from an acting
point of view. All ideas for creating interest must be held up against the
yardstick of the theme of the story, the narrative requirements and the
purpose of the scene; but, within that, you must make a work of art
interesting. I recall a comment recorded in a book called Stanislavski
Directs, in which Stanislavski told an actor that he had the right
understanding of the character, the right understanding of the text of the
play, that what he was doing was completely believable, but that it was
still no good because it wasn't interesting.

Were you looking after the hand-held camera for the fight with the
Cat Lady?

Yes, all of the hand-held camerawork is mine. In addition to the
fun of doing the shooting myself, I find it is virtually impossible to
explain what you want in a hand-held shot to even the most talented and
sensitive camera operator.

To what extent do you rationalise a shot before setting it up?

There are certain aspects of a film which can meaningfully be
talked about, but photography and editing do not lend themselves to verbal
analysis. It's very much the same as the problem one has talking about
painting, or music. The questions of taste involved and the
decision-making criteria are essentially nonverbal, and whatever you say
about them tends to read like the back of a record album. These are
decisions that have to be made every few minutes during the shooting, and
they are just down to the director's taste and imagination.

How did you come to choose the Purcell piece -- the 'Music for the
Funeral of Queen Mary'?

Well, this answer is going to sound a lot like the last one. You're
in an area where words are not particularly relevant. In thinking about
the music for the scene, the Purcell piece occurred to me and, after I
listened to it several times in conjunction with the film, there was
simply no question in regards to using it.

The arrangements by Walter Carlos are extraodinarily effective...

I think Walter Carlos has done something completely unique in the
field of electronic realisation of music- -- that's the phrase that they
use. I think that I've heard most of the electronic music and musique
concrete LPs there are for sale in Britain, Germany, France, and the
United States; not because I particularly like this kind of music, but out
of my researches for 2001 and A Clockwork Orange. I think
Walter Carlos is the only electronic composer and realiser who has managed
to create a sound which is not an attempt at copying the instruments of
the orchestra and yet which, at the same time, achieves a beauty of its
own employing electronic tonalities. I think that his version of the
fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony rivals hearing a full
orchestra playing it, and that is saying an awful lot.

There is very little post-synchronisation of the dialog...

There is no post-synchronisation. I'm quite pleased about this
because every scene was shot on location; even the so-called sets that we
built which were, in fact, built in a factory about 40 feet off the noisy
High Street in Borehamwood, a few hundred yards from the old M-G-M Studio.
Despite this, we were able to get quite acceptably clean soundtracks. With
the modem equipment that's available today in the form of microphones,
radio transmitters and so forth, it should be possible t get a usable
soundtrack almost anywhere. In the scene where the tramp recognises Alex
who is standing near the Thames, next to the Albert Bridge, there was so
much traffic noise on the location that you had to shout in order to be
heard, but we were able to get such a quiet soundtrack that it was
necessary to add street noise in the final mix to make it realistic. We
used a microphone the size of a paperclip, and it was secured with black
tape on the tramp's scarf. In several shots you can see the microphone,
but you don't know what you're looking at.

In concentrating on the action of the film, as you do, isn't there a
danger that the lesser characters may appear rather one-dimensional?

The danger of everything that you do in a film is that it may not
work, it may be boring, or bland, or stupid.

When you think of the greatest moments of film, I think you are almost
always involved with images rather than scenes, and certainly never
dialogue. The thing a film does best is to use pictures with music and I
think these are the moments you remember. Another thing is the way an
actor did something: the way Emil Jannings took out his handkerchief and
blew his nose in The Blue Angel, or those marvelous slow turns that
Nikolai Cherkassov did in Ivan the Terrible.

How did you manage the subjective shot of Alex's suicide attempt?

We bought an old Newman Sinclair clockwork mechanism camera (no pun
intended) for 40 Pounds. It's a beautiful camera and it's built like a
battleship. We made a number of polystyrene boxes which gave about 18
inches of protection around the camera, and cut out a slice for the lens.
We then threw the camera off a roof. In order to get it to land lens
first, we had to do this six times and the camera survived all six drops.
On the final one it landed right on the lens and smashed it but it didn't
do a bit of harm to the camera. This, despite the fact that the
polystyrene was literally blasted away from it each time by the impact.
The next day we shot a steady test on the camera and found there wasn't a
thing wrong with it. On this basis, I would say that the Newman Sinclair
must be the most indestructible camera ever made.

How much planning do you do before you shoot a scene?

As much as there are hours in the day, and days in the week. I
think about a film almost continuously. I try to visualise it and I try to
work out every conceivable variation of ideas which might exist with
respect to the various scenes, but I have found that when you come down to
the day the scene is going to be shot and you arrive on the location with
the actors, having had the experience of already seeing some of the scenes
shot, somehow it's always different. You find out that you have not really
explored the scene to it' fullest extent. You may have been thinking about
it incorrectly, or you may simply not have discovered one of the
variations which now in context with everything else that you have shot is
simply better than anything you had previously thought of. The reality of
the final moment, just before shooting, is so powerful that all previous
analysis must yield before the impressions you receive under these
circumstances, and unless you use this feedback to your positive
advantage, unless adjust to it, adapt to it and accept the sometimes
terrifying weaknesses it can expose, you can never realise the most out of
your film.

How do you usually work when you get to the reality of the final
moment?

Whenever I start a new scene, the most important thing in my mind
is, within the needs of the theme and the scene, to make something happen
worth putting on film. The most crucial part of this comes when you start
new rehearsals on a new scene. You arrive on the location, the crew is
standing around eating buns and drinking tea, waiting to be told what to
do. You've got to keep them outside the room you're rehearsing in and take
whatever time is necessary to get everything right, and have it make
sense. There's no way to define what this process consists of. It
obviously has to do with taste and imagination and it is in this crucial
period of time that a film is really created.Once you know you've got
something worthwhile, the shooting becomes a matter of recording
(improving, if you can) what you have already done in rehearsal. Whatever
problems exist during the actual shooting are not the kind of problems
that worry me. If the actor isn't getting it right, well, he'll get it
right eventually. If the camera operator spoils a shot, it can be done
again. The thing that can never be changed, and the thing that is the make
or break of a picture, are those few hours you spend alone in the actual
place with the actors, with the crew outside drinking their tea.

Sometimes you find that the scene is absolutely no good at all. It
doesn't make sense when you see it acted. It doesn't provide the necessary
emotional or factual information in an interesting way, or in a way which
has the right weight to it. Any number of things can suddenly put you in a
position where you've got nothing to shoot. The only thing you can say
about a moment like this is that it's better to realise it while you still
have a chance to change it and to create something new, than it is to
record forever something that is wrong. This is the best and the worst
time: it is the time you have your most imaginative ideas, things that not
occurred to you before, regardless of how much you've thought about the
scene. It's also the time when you can stand there and feel very dumb and
unhappy with what you're seeing, and not have the faintest idea of what to
do about it.

Do you very consciously favor a particular style of shooting?

If something is really happening on the screen, it isn't crucial
how it's shot. Chaplin had such a simple cinematic style that it was
almost like I Love Lucy, but you were always hypnotised by what was
going on, unaware of the essentially non-cinematic style. He frequently
used cheap sets, routine lighting and so forth, but he made great films.
His films will probably last longer than anyone else's. You could say that
Chaplin was no style and all content. On the other hand, the opposite can
be seen in Eisenstein's films, who is all style and no content or,
depending on how generous you want to be, little content. Many of
Eisenstein's films are really quite silly; but they are so beautifully
made, so brilliantly cinematic, that, despite their heavily propagandistic
simplemindedness, they become important.

Do you have a preference for any one aspect of the whole filmmaking
process?

I think I enjoy editing the most. It's the nearest thing to some
reasonable in which to do creative work. Writing, of course, is very
satisfying, but, of course, you're not working with film. The actual
shooting of a film is probably the worst circumstances you could try to
imagine for creating a work of art. There is, first of all, the problem of
getting up very early every morning and going to bed very late every
night. Then there is the chaos, confusion, and frequently physical
discomfort. It would be, I suppose, like a writer trying to write a book
while working at a factory lathe in tempatures that range from 95 to -10
degrees Fahrenheit. In addition to this, of course, editing is the only
aspect of the cinematic art that is unique. It shares no connection with
any other art form: writing, acting, photography, things that are major
aspects of the cinema, are still not unique to it, but editing is.

How long did the editing take on Clockwork Orange?

The editing up to the point of dubbing took about six months,
working seven days a week.

Do you ever have problems cutting out your own material?

When I'm editing, I'm only concerned with the questions of 'Is it
good or bad?' 'Is it necessary?' 'Can I get rid of it ?' 'Does it work ?'
My identity changes to that of an editor. I am never concerned with how
much difficulty there was to shoot something, how much it cost, and so
forth. I look at the material with completely different eyes. I'm never
troubled losing material. I cut everything to the bone. When you're
shooting, you want to make sure you don't miss anything and you cover it
as fully as time and budget allow. When you're editing, you want to get
rid of everything that isn't essential.

How much support coverage do you shoot?

There's always a conflict between time, money and quality. If you
shoot a lot of coverage, then you must either spend a lot of money, or
settle for less quality of performance. I find that when I'm shooting a
scene, I shoot a lot of takes but I don't try to get a lot of coverage
from other angles. I try to shoot the scene as simply as possible get the
maximum performance from the actors without presenting them the problem of
repeating the performance too many times from different angles. On the
other hand, in an action scene, where it's relatively easy to shoot, you
want lots and lots of angles so that you can do something interesting with
it in the cutting room.

Do you direct actors in every detail, or do you expect them to some
extent to come up with their own ideas?

I come up with the ideas. That is essentially the director's job.
There's a misconception, I think, about what directing actors means: it
generally goes along the lines of the director imposing his will over
difficult actors, or teaching people who don't know how to act. I try to
hire the best actors in the world. The problem is one a conductor might
face. There's little joy in trying to get a magnificent performance from a
student orchestra. It's difficult enough to get one with all the
subtleties and nuances you might want out of the greatest orchestra in the
world. You want to have great virtuoso soloists, and so with actors. Then
it's not necessary to teach them how to act or to impose your will on them
because usually there is no problem along those lines. An actor will
almost always do what you want him to do if he is able to do it; and,
therefore, since great actors are able to do almost anything, you find you
have few problems. You can then concentrate on what you want them to do,
what is the psychology of the character, what is the purpose of the scene,
what is the story about? These are the things that are often muddled up
and require simplicity and exactitude. The director's job is to provide
the actor with ideas, not to teach him how to act or to trick him into
acting. There's no way to give an actor what he hasn't got in the form of
talent. You can give him ideas, thoughts, attitudes. The actor's job is to
create emotion. Obviously, the actor may have some ideas too, but this is
not what his primary responsibility is. You can make a mediocre actor less
mediocre, you can make a terrible actor mediocre, but you cannot go very
far without the magic. Great performances come from the magical talent of
the actor, plus the ideas of the director.

The other part of the director's job is to exercise taste: he must
decide whether what he is seeing is interesting, whether it's appropriate,
whether it's of sufficient weight, whether it's credible. These are
decisions no one else can make.

You have made what might seem some unusual casting choices for your
last two films -- how do you find the actors you want?

Well, that really comes down to a question of taste, doesn't it? A
lot of pictures are cast by producers and their decisions are frequently
based on proven success rather than unproven hints at talent. Many
producers aren't willing to decide whether an actor who is unknown and who
has done very little work is really good. I have nothing against people of
proven talent, but sometimes there may be no one in that category who is
right for the part.

Do you enjoy working with different actors? With a few exceptions --
Peter Sellers, for instance -- you haven't often used the same actor
twice, unlike a lot of directors who obviously prefer to build up a sort
of stock company of people who know their work.

I don't really think in those terms in those terms. I try to choose
the best actors for the parts, whether I know them or not. I would avoid
actors who have reputations for being destructive or neurotic but, other
than that, there is no one whom I would not consider using for a part...

The only thing that is really important in your relationship with
actors is that they must know that you admire them, that you admire their
work, and there's no way to fake that. You must really admire them or you
shouldn't use them. If they know that you admire their work, which they
can sense in a thousand different ways, it doesn't really matter what you
think of each other or what you say to them, or whether you are terribly
friendly or not. The thing they care about is their work. Some actors are
very amusing and pleasant and always cheerful. They are, of course, more
pleasant to have around than those who are morose, vacant or enigmatic.
But how they behave when you're not shooting has very little to do with
what happens when the camera turns over.

You made Clockwork Orange initially because you had to postpone
your Napoleon project. How do you see the Napoleon film developing?

First of all, I start from the premise that there has never been a
great historical film, and I say that with all apologies and respect to
those who have made historical films, including myself [Kubrick
had yet to select or to film "Barry Lyndon" at the time of this interview
-- Ed.]. I don't think anyone has ever successfully solved the problem
of dealing in an interesting way with the historical information that has
to be conveyed, and at the same time getting a sense of reality about the
daily life of the characters. You have to get a feeling of what it was
like to be with Napoleon. At the same time, you have to convey enough
historical information in an intelligent, interesting and concise way so
that the audience understands what happened.

Would you include Abel Gance's Napoleon in this verdict?

I think I would have to. I know that the film is a masterpiece of
cinematic invention and it brought cinematic innovations to the screen
which are still being called innovations whenever someone is bold enough
to try them again. But on the other hand, as a film about Napoleon, I have
to say I've always been disappointed in it.

Did you think of A Clockwork Orange as being in any way a form of
relaxation between two very big films?

I don't think in terms of big movies, or small movies. Each movie
presents problems of its own and has advantages of its own. Each movie
requires everything that you have to give it, in order to overcome the
artistic and logistic problems that it poses. There are advantages in an
epic film, just as there are disadvantages. It is much easier to do a hugh
crowd scene and make it interesting than it is to film a man sitting at a
table thinking.